Check out the first photo of Meryl Streep in The Giver. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost explain why they probably won't be in Ant-Man. Is another classic villain being hinted at for the Amazing Spider-Man films? That Ouija movie is still happening. Plus yet another Stephen King story is becoming a TV show. Spoilers ahead!

The Giver

Here's the first set photo of Meryl Streep on set in South America. She's playing the Chief Elder, who is the leader of the community in which the story takes place. [Vanity Fair]

Ant-Man

Everyone's wondering whether Edgar Wright will reunite with Nick Frost and Simon Pegg for his foray into the Marvel universe. Both said they'd think about it if asked, but both seemed to think it would be unlikely. Frost said that he didn't know who he could play, pointing out that there aren't "many superheroes who are big men, essentially." Pegg said that "as his friend and lawyer," he'd advise Wright against asking him to be in Ant-Man, and thinks it'd behoove them to do separate things.

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As for Wright himself, he's mostly thinking about the restraints of making a PG-13 film:

It's a challenge to do. Shaun and Hot Fuzz and World's End are all R-rated films. I like the challenge of making a PG-13 film. Because you've got to entertain in a different way. You don't have the same tools. It's also different in terms of Scott Pilgrim. They're both adaptations. It's nice to be able to do an adaptation.

Amazing Spider-Man 2

There's a url hidden in the trailer. If you watch it in 1080 HD, the url ElectroArrives.com appears at the 2:06-2:07 mark, on the right side of the lit up beam. The site itself is currently just an animation of Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborne looking at a countdown to what looks like New Year's Eve. Spider-Man is supposed to be in at the Times Square broadcast this year, and new footage is expected for it, so it looks like that's what the countdown is for. [Coming Soon]

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And there's another post from the Daily Bugle tumblr, this one called "Spider-Man Vs. the Mob!" The first little hint is that this article is "written" by Eddie Brock. The second is the reference to the "Zero One Lounge," which might be linked to the countdown on the Electro Arrives site. The article reads:

What began as a mob shoot-out escalated into a full-blown superhuman slugfest when the vigilante known as Spider-Man appeared on the scene. An argument inside the Zero One Lounge turned ugly when reputed mob enforcer, "Fancy" Dan Brito, pulled a gun on rivals from the Manfredi crime family. As club-goers fled onto the streets of the Meatpacking District, Spider-Man dropped down out of the sky.

Not content to merely take the law into his own hands, bystanders claimed that Spider-Man mocked the thugs as he delivered a one-two punch that sent them soaring.

"It was hard to see from where I was hiding," said witness Andrea Moore of Park Slope, "but I heard someone, I'm pretty sure it was Spider-Man, say, 'I hope you're not afraid of heights,' and then one of those guys screamed as he landed on top of a fire escape."

When pressed about any crimes she may have witnessed Spider-Man committing, Moore replied, "Crimes? It's not a crime to round up stray dogs. What the hell are you talking about?"

Spider-Man disappeared as police arrived to find a dozen mobsters restrained with unmistakable webbing. Brito and his accomplices, Jackson "Montana" Brice and Raymond "The Ox" Bloch, spent the night in the 10TH Precinct holding cell. The NYPD has yet to announce what charges, if any, they plan to bring against the smack-talking vigilante.

Brito, led away in handcuffs, was overheard describing the encounter with the web-slinger: "Just when I thought I was out, he pulled me back in."

Interstellar

Christopher Nolan's next movie about explorers using a newly-discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on space travel has released its official logo, ahead of the first trailer. [First Showing]

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Here is one last poster coinciding with the release of the film. [Coming Soon]

Grand Central

A show based on the Stephen King short story "The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates" is being made into a series for ABC, and is going to air in summer 2014. The story involved a woman getting a call from her deceased husband, who tells her about two events. The knowledge of them keeps her alive. [Slashfilm]

Doctor Who

In Doctor Who Magazine, Steven Moffat opened up a little on Orla Brady's character, Tasha Lem:

The Doctor meets an old friend. Someone from his distant past. Someone who knows him very well, but whom we have never met. She's the Mother Superious of the Papal Mainframe.

That was a reference actually. That was the director's idea, Jamie [Payne]. We did make-up tests at the beginning and he looked at them and said he wanted a touch of alien, and I think he referenced Ridley Scott. It was that idea of human, but with a twist. And there is a twist, it's as Steven Moffat said, she's a descendant of humans, there's a grandmother or a great-grandmother who was from elsewhere, a touch of something else in her. Jamie wanted that slightly not-quite-human, three-quarters human thing, hence that Blade Runner reference, so he asked for that. They know their world so well, Howard Burden and the costume designers, they all know what they want and have a very good vision of it.

She also said the script made her laugh out loud, not at her character, but at a Doctor interaction she's worried about spoiling:

Not my character. It was Matt's interaction with a certain other character who I'm trying not to name [laughing]. There were other conversation strands between the Doctor and somebody else that made me laugh out loud. There were a couple of moments between Tasha and the Doctor that made me laugh out loud, but she's not a particularly funny character and in truth – and this is completely understandable – some things had to be shaved back because there's only so much time on Christmas Day. There's only an hour, and essential story has to be told, so some of the funnier moments, when we got to actually shooting, had been trimmed away, which I was sad about, because selfishly, you always want as much character as possible. Equally I could see quite properly that this episode was firmly about wrapping up the Doctor's story, so everything else that isn't that is up for grabs in terms of cuts.

American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy answered a bunch of questions about the remaining episodes of the show:

The big question is: Is Queenie dead?

Everyone wants to know that and I'm not saying but we do talk about what happens to her body in episode 10 so keep watching.

So now that Hank is dead, I'm assuming his father will be pissed?Oh yeah. One of the points we've been writing to and driving to is that if the voodoos and the Salems would only unite they could probably be unstoppable. Now they're up against the biggest enemy which is The Corporation.

So will the final four episodes be about the voodoos and the Salems teaming up?Yes. That's one of the things. Marie and Fiona must join forces to beat this enemy. They have different ways and approaches about what they think they should do. Selfishly I just wanted to have a lot of scenes with Angela and Jessica together because they're so great together. So I was like, "We gotta get Marie Laveau to move in that house."

So does she move in?Yes. She's there for good.

"Head" is the mid-season finale.What can you say about the final four episodes?

Well we have a lot of special stuff. The next one is called "The Magical Charms of Stevie Nicks" starring Stevie Nicks. The last four are Can Marie and Fiona beat these witch hunters that have been after their groups for centuries. Who's going to be the next Supreme? Who's Kyle going to choose in terms of the witches? What's going to happen to LaLaurie and what's going to happen to the friendship between Queenie and LaLaurie? So those are the driving forces.

We're just now writing the finale. I've never been sadder. At one point, as I told you, I had thought maybe we'll spin this show off but that's against the DNA of the show. You'd have to second guess who you're going to get rid of the show and the fun of the show is that anybody can die at any point. I'm really sad to see that group of characters go even though in January we start writing the new season. But I'm gonna miss them.

Arrow

According to executive producers Andrew Kreisberg and Greg Berlanti, more people are going to find out about Oliver's other identity before the season is out. Kreisberg said:

For us, him keeping his secret identity is the least interesting part of the character. People knowing, and letting him talk to people and letting him share that experience, we find to be much more interesting.

Kreisberg also said that we haven't lost the threat of Merlyn and Thea's true parentage, and that we can expect Thea to be "hit with a whammy." Kreisberg also said that Roy's injection with Brother Blood's formula will play into his rage and his potential to go bad:

One of the fun things that will be happening in the back half of the year is [Roy's] relationship with the Arrow and how that changes and how the Arrow basically makes it his mission to not let Roy go down the Slade path. That takes some interesting twists and turns.

Finally, Slade as a villain is driven by his belief that Oliver is to blame for Shado's death. According to Berlanti:

This year, we've got a two-pronged approach to the bad guy. Also, because Oliver knows about the presence of one of the bad guys, it helps us change the rhythms of the back half of the year from what we may have done last year.

Episode 2.14 will be called, "Time of Death," according to a photo of the script tweeted by Bex Taylor-Klaus. [SpoilerTV]

And finally, the promo shown after the midseason finale on Wednesday. [via SpoilerTV]

The Flash

Should the spinoff actually happen Geoff Johns and Andrew Kreisberg are already thinking about what to do. They spoke about how they'd keep the spinoff separate from Arrow:

Kreisberg: We'll want to keep "Arrow" as distinctive as possible, and "Flash" as distinctive as possible. Part of the fun will be how those two things play out in both shows, if we get that opportunity.

Johns: But there are story reasons that Flash feels different and that he's taking on different things in his series.

They also spoke about what elements from the comics mythology they'd bring into the new show:

Kreisberg: In the same way that "Arrow" was conducive to bringing on characters like Deadshot and the Huntress and some of the more grounded people, hopefully with "The Flash" there's a way to bring on some of the more fantastical characters, that will probably still go through the grounding lens with which we view everything. But we could tackle some of the bigger villains, and possibly heroes. There's a hint of a major character in the pilot.

But it's always important to remember — like with "Arrow," everybody wants Batman to come on and whatnot, but Arrow has to be the coolest person on "Arrow." The same thing with "The Flash" — Barry has to be the coolest person. If we're lucky enough to get to do more past the pilot, it'll really be about making sure that the audience loves The Flash, and Barry Allen, and Grant Gustin, as much as we do.

Johns (on whether the show's hinting that TV Barry's mother was killed by Professor Zoom, like the comics): We're using a lot of mythology, a lot of characters from the comics in the development of the "Flash" show. I don't want to get too specific yet, but you'll see a lot of characters, a lot of elements from that. It's very much The Flash.

The Vampire Diaries

Not only has Enzo returned but, according to executive producer Caroline Dries, he'll be staying a while:

Let's bring things to Enzo, because I'm so happy he's alive. How is that reunion with Damon going to go?

That's something that we want to build up to in the show is, "How is Damon going to react when he learns that Enzo is still alive?" And Enzo, being on that operating table for many, many years beyond what Damon went through is going to have some sort of chip on his shoulder and [is] holding some sort of grudge against Damon. At the same time, Enzo is kind of a great guy and was Damon's only friend, and Damon was his only friend for that whole time so they have a very complicated relationship.

Will Enzo be sticking around for a little while?

Yes, we will. He's going to kind of be, as Damon's trying to figure out who he is post-Augustine and now that he's come clean to Elena about what he was doing even at the beginning of their relationship, going off and killing Aaron's whole family, Damon's trying to figure out who he is, and all of a sudden he has this new kind of devil on his shoulder in Enzo.

She also said that there's nothing hidden or secret about Aaron:

He is as innocent as he seems. He's this tragic figure that was a victim of Damon and a victim of Augustine, a victim of his parent's desire to get rid of vampires, so yeah, we're not playing too much in terms of him having a mysterious agenda.

The Originals

Elyse Levesque will be playing the witch Genevieve, first appearing in episode 13. Genevieve will have a hidden agenda (who doesn't?) and unfinished business with Marcel and Rebekah. Speculation is that the "unfinished business" is linked to the secret the two share that was hinted at in the midseason finale. [She Knows]

Grimm

According to Bitsie Tulloch, the Christmas episode is going to go back to the "scarier" nature of the show:

You would maybe think that Grimm would do a Christmas episode and have it be a little more benign but we went in the opposite direction! I think it's one of the best episodes we've ever done. It's a twisted take on Santa Claus and the script is very clever. I think people are gonna love it.

She discussed the way the show's been going this season:

That's a natural byproduct of what happens when you're given the freedom and the leeway that our showrunners have been given to delve deeper into the mythology, going deeper into a Wesen's background and the relationship between characters and the Scooby squad. The more we learn, the more we will discover secrets and some of it will be darker, but everyone seems to be loving the direction the show is going in.

Speaking of the Christmas episode, David Guintoli talked about the Krampus that will appear:

Krampus is pretty wild. That guy. I mean he was – when I walked onto set and I saw the actor dressed – I mean first of all, we hired a gigantic guy to play this character. And then when I saw him as Santa with these horns, I actually had like a visceral reaction to him. I was kind of frightened in a way. It was a disturbing thing.

. . . So I mean there's an actual legend of Krampus out there, and we've had German people asking us to do Krampus over and over again, and we finally tipped our hat to the fine people of Bavaria and we're bringing this legend to life. We ruin Christmas for everybody and it's gory and it's wonderful.

He also hinted that someone would be finding out about his secret life and that this season may have two villains, but that the "new character" is going to be the greater villain of the two. Could that be Alexis Denisof's character, perhaps?

He also talked about what's happening in Europe:

You know, there's going to be a big plot line that's going on in Europe. I – Nick is not too involved with it, at least through mid-season, though I know that's going to start changing soon. There are – okay, I'll – so we have the Verrat and we have the Royals. These are all bad guys. The Verrat I see as kind of the SS, and the Royals, such as Captain Renard, and his cousin, who's being introduced as Alexis Denisof, a great actor, will be having a major conflict overseas.His cousin wants to get me and access to me. And, he comes very close very soon. And then there – we have the resistance. A kind of group of rag-tag people trying to overthrow the Royals, so we'll be meeting some new characters overseas doing that kind of thing. Keeping an eye on Adalind.

Once Upon a Time

Being Human

The first episode of season four will be called "Old Dog. New Tricks." The season will have Nora driven to desperate measures to get her husband back while Josh is permanently a wolf. Aiden's going to get visitors from his past: his maker, Bishop, and a mysterious woman who looks like his long lost wife. And Sally and Donna will find themselves trapped together. Go here for a complete set of photos from season four. [Dread Central]